Yano Research Institute conducted a survey of the global market for collaborative robots, identifying relevant policies and support systems in major countries, trends in participating companies, and future prospects. On August 5, the Institute published a forecast of the global shipments of collaborative robots. A collaborative robot is a type of industrial robot. It is a "robot designed to interact directly with humans in a defined collaborative workspace," meaning it can be placed in the same space as humans and work collaboratively with them.
The survey targeted "manipulating industrial robots," which are vertically and horizontally articulated robots, that is, "machines possessing three or more axes, operating under automatic control, with reprogrammable and versatile manipulation functions," and collaborative robots that conform to the international robot safety standards "ISO 10218-1," "ISO 10218-2," and "ISO TS 15066." Products and services included in the target market are industrial robots, collaborative robots, vertically articulated robots, horizontally articulated robots, SCARA robots, and robot system integration.
According to the survey, the global market for collaborative robots is expected to be 92,496 units in 2024, an increase by 147.9% compared with the previous year, based on the number of units shipped by manufacturers. Looking at the situation by country, in the Chinese market, collaborative robot manufacturers are strengthening their sales efforts by focusing on small- and medium-sized enterprises in the automotive and electronics industries, where automation is not yet very advanced. In the nonmanufacturing sector, inquiries are increasing for applications such as baristas in cafes and cooks in restaurants as well as for applications in the medical and agricultural fields.
In the European market, production in related industries that make secondary batteries and electronics components is expected to increase with the growing popularity of electric vehicles. Among these industries, proposals for collaborative robots are being strengthened, particularly for repetitive tasks that previously relied on manual labor. In addition, Chinese collaborative robot manufacturers, facing a difficult export environment in the US due to the deterioration of US−China relations, are shifting their target markets from North America to Europe and strengthening their sales efforts.
In the US market, accelerating growth of labor costs and soaring raw material costs are increasing the need for production automation using collaborative robots, especially in the automotive industry. Additionally, manufacturers are strengthening their sales efforts, particularly in the automobile, secondary battery, and semiconductor industries, where capital investment is expanding.
In the nonmanufacturing sector, Korean manufacturers are stepping up the sales of collaborative robot systems that function as cooks and baristas, targeting the food and beverage industries. Furthermore, within the US, as in the Chinese market, robots for massage applications are beginning to attract attention.
In the Japanese market, there has been an increase in inquiries regarding introducing robots for automation in the manufacturing industry. The world's major collaborative robot manufacturers have entered the Japanese market. They are working to expand their market share through a diverse lineup of products whose specifications and prices are specific to the target industries and applications.
In the Korean market, the use of collaborative robots is expanding in the shipbuilding industry. In addition, there is a growing number of examples of their introduction to various applications, including the fighter jet manufacturing process in the defense industry and applications in the electric wire industry, smart agriculture, hospital surgery, airports, and cafes.
In the featured topic section, the Institute predicts that AI software technology will be a game changer in the market. In recent years, research and development has been progressing on collaborative robots that combine ICT and AI technology to enable the interaction between humans and collaborative robots, which can be applied to nonstandard work environments. Such research is being conducted on technologies to improve the efficiency of IoT (sensors and data collection), wireless and high-speed communications (data transmission), big data and deep learning (data analysis), teachless control, and motion teaching as well as on large-scale language models, digital twins, and imitation learning. These research and development efforts are expected to simultaneously increase the ease and sophistication of programing and teaching tasks for collaborative robots. Furthermore, work accuracy is expected to improve, further expanding the application scope of collaborative robots. Thus, it is believed that AI software technology that makes collaborative robots more functional and accurate will revolutionize the collaborative robot market.
In the future, the importance of automation using robots will increase not only in manufacturing but also in nonmanufacturing industries. With the evolution of AI and sensing technologies, collaborative robots will become more precise, perform better, and have more functionality. The number of industries employing them and their application range will continue to expand. The size of the global collaborative robot market (based on manufacturer shipments) is predicted to increase to approximately 681,000 units in 2033, which is 7.4 times the market size of 2024 (estimated).
This article has been translated by JST with permission from The Science News Ltd. (https://sci-news.co.jp/). Unauthorized reproduction of the article and photographs is prohibited.